Sept. 22 (UPI) — UAW President Shawn Fain will likely announce Friday morning a new round of workers going on strike because there has not been “significant” progress in talks on a new contract.
Fain said he would give an update on the UAW strike against Ford Motor, General Motors and Stellantis at 10 a.m., when he will name the plants that will be affected by the striking workers.
UAW members totaling roughly 13,000 workers at the Ford Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, Mich., the Stellantis Toledo Assembly Complex in Ohio, and the GM Wentzville Assembly Plant in Missouri are currently striking.
The strike started earlier this month after automakers and the union failed to reach a contract deal. The UAW “standup” strike strategy is intended to keep Ford, General Motors and Stellantis engaged with sudden, targeted strikes at important plants, rather than having all of the nearly 150,000 UAW auto workers walk off their jobs at the same time, the union said.
General Motors said Thursday it was laying off about 2,000 Kansas assembly plant workers due to a shortage of parts caused by the strike and Stellantis has laid off about 370 workers at three parts factories supplying its Toledo Jeep plant.
The union said its key demands focus on a 40% hourly pay increase, a reduced 32-hour workweek, a shift back to traditional pensions, and a restoration of cost-of-living adjustments.
